Fire and Hemlock
#4913.95 in the official ranking · full ranking
Books 1 book Status Complete 1985 Reading commitment Low Diana Wynne Jones Last reviewed 2026-08-13
Overview
A contemporary-set fantasy novel reworking the ballads of Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer, in which a young woman's childhood friendship with an enigmatic older man unravels into a battle to free him from a fairy queen's court. In Diana Wynne Jones's Fire and Hemlock, Polly discovers a second, hidden set of memories revealing years of friendship with musician Thomas Lynn, who made a supernatural bargain with the fairy queen Laurel, and must use clues drawn from the traditional ballads themselves to outwit her and win him back. First published by Greenwillow Books in the US in 1984 and by Methuen Children's Books in the UK the following year, the novel became a 2005 Phoenix Award Honor Book decades after publication, recognizing a children's book that has remained significant without winning major awards on first release; contemporary reviewers called it ambitious while warning that its shifting, riddling structure could leave readers disoriented.
Fairy-tale retelling · For YA
Core Canon: Reading Order (1 work) counts toward ranking
Fire and Hemlock (novel) Diana Wynne Jones
| Work | Year | Canon | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Fire and Hemlock | 1985 | core | 3.95 (11,271 ratings) |
A contemporary-set fantasy novel reworking the ballads of Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer. Registered under its 1985 UK first edition year per this project's author-credit/textual-integrity convention (a 1984 US edition also exists; UK first per Wikipedia). Standalone; registered as a single-work universe (LOTR-analogy convention). Confirmed separate continuity from Diana Wynne Jones's other admitted universes: Howl's Moving Castle, Chrestomanci, and the Dalemark Quartet.
Quick answers
- How many books are in Fire and Hemlock? Fire and Hemlock's Core Canon is 1 book.
- Is Fire and Hemlock finished? Complete (1985).
- How much reading does Fire and Hemlock take? Low reading commitment (estimated from 1 Core Canon book · ~420 pages).
- How is Fire and Hemlock ranked? #491 in this site's official ranking, based on 11,271 reader ratings across 1 Core Canon book. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #491?
Ranked #491 in the official ranking.
- Average reader rating of 3.95 across 1 core book.
- A smaller readership (11,271 ratings), so the score carries less weight of numbers.
- Less than 0.01 behind #490, Windrose Chronicles (a finer tie-break level decides the order).
- Below the top-10 average of 4.45.
- A single standalone novel: ranked on that one book alone.
Why explore this universe?
Well rated · 1 book · Complete · 11k ratings · Ranks #491 overall
Good choice if you want a quick, low-commitment fairy-tale retelling fantasy universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.
Reading order
A single Core Canon work: no sequencing question to resolve.
Awards (verified)
- Phoenix Award (Best Book), 2005: honor: Fire and Hemlock; Confirmed directly via the Children's Literature Association's own Phoenix Award page: an Honor Book for 2005 (the 2005 winner was The Catalogue of the Universe by Margaret Mahy). The Phoenix Award honors an English-language children's book published 20 years earlier that did not win a major literary award at the time -- 2005 = books from 1985, matching Fire and Hemlock's UK first-edition year. Registered as `honor`, this project's exact enum value for this case.
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Suggestions computed from what Fire and Hemlock and each of these worlds have in common on record (subgenre, audience, shape, reading commitment and score), not a documented narrative connection.
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- Magic Moon Portal fantasy / Fairy-tale retelling · Complete · Low commitment · 3.85
Official resources
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 3.95 across 11,271 ratings on 1 Core Canon book. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.
How do we know this?
Admission: Fire and Hemlock admitted as a single-work universe accepted 2026-08-13
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
- Wikipedia: Fire and Hemlock Tier 2
Last reviewed: 2026-08-13
Rule: single-work: a genuinely one-off novel, registered per this canon's Once and Future King/LOTR-analogy precedent. Confirmed separate continuity from Diana Wynne Jones's other admitted universes: Howl's Moving Castle, Chrestomanci, and the Dalemark Quartet.